Ziarul Financiar scrie ca cei mai puternici antreprenori romani admit pentru prima data ca nu-si pot redresa singuri businessurile si platesc milioane de euro consultantilor externi.
Gandul afirma ca teama din primavara a hotelierilor de pe litoralul romanesc ca vor ramane fara turisti s-a tradus printr-o majorare a preturilor sejururilor din cadrul programelor speciale lansate de asociatiile de profil, in medie cu 20% mai mari fata de anul trecut.
Evenimentul zilei scrie ca un investitor dezvolta in Stefanesti, localitate din apropierea Capitalei, un complex rezidential cu locuinte care nu respecta suprafata utila minima impusa de lege, un apartament de trei camere avand 58,15 mp utili in loc de 66 mp, cat sunt prevazuti in lege.
Romania libera afirma ca sfarsitul semestrului I indica o usoara redresare a activitatilor din domeniul constructiilor, in iunie volumul lucrarilor de constructii crescand fata de luna precedenta cu 9,3%.
Adevarul scrie ca in ultimul raport al companiei de servicii imobiliare CB Richard Ellis se arata ca scaderea preturilor in prima jumatate a anului a variat intre 15 si 40% fata de aceeasi perioada din 2008, in functie de locatie, grad de finisare si facilitati, precum si de strategia dezvoltatorilor.
Puteti citi mai multe despre subiectele principale din zilele trecute aici.
Gandul scrie ca fiscul vrea sa ia la bani marunti piata imobiliara din Romania, din perioada de maxima efervescenta, iar pe lista de verificari se afla Becali si fratii Negoita.
Ziarul financiar scrie despre lupta PDL cu criza, de la scutirea profitului reinvestit si vanzarea participatiilor de stat la extinderea ajutorului de minimis pentru IMM-uri si investitiile in mediu si irigatii.
Evenimentul zilei precizeaza ca noua lege a salarizarii va duce la un paradox: ce se castiga acum prin disponibilizari masive din sectorul de stat se va pierde odata cu marirea lefurilor celor ramasi.
Cotidianul scrie ca numarul bugetarilor din administratiile locale va fi stabilit in functie de numarul de locuitori din fiecare oras si comuna, potrivit standardelor unitare de cost pentru administratiile locale discutate de ministrii Finantelor si Administratiei cu liderii din teritoriu.
Romania Libera precizeaza ca pentru achizitia unei locuinte cu ajutorul unui credit prin "Prima Casa" trebuie sa aveti pregatita o suma echivalenta cu 10-11% din valoarea locuintei, din care 4% costuri colaterale.
Adevarul afirma ca librariile online de carte straina sunt o afacere de nisa pe care se bat putine nume, in conditiile in care romanii sunt din ce mai interesati de cartile in limbi straine.
Ziarul Gandul afirma ca in al doilea trimestru al acestui an PIB a scazut cu 8,8 % fata de perioada similara din 2008, deprecierea medie UE fiind de 4,8%. Dupa ce anul trecut a avut cea mai mare crestere economica din Europa, de 7,1%, Romania a inregistrat anul acesta numai recorduri negative, intrand in recesiune severa.
Ziarul financiar precizeaza faptul ca Romania a inregistrat cea mai mare rata anuala a inflatiei dintre toate statele UE, de 5%, cu mult peste media celorlalte state membre, de 0,2%. Cele mai reduse rate anuale ale cresterii preturilor au fost inregistrate de Irlanda (-2,6%), Belgia (-1,7%) si Luxemburg (-1,5%).
Business Standard precizeaza ca industria si comertul au inregistrat cele mai drastice scaderi in ultimele patru trimestre, iar constructiile sau serviciile, desi au rezistat ceva mai bine, au intrat si ele pe o panta descendenta. Conform acordului cu FMI, Guvernul se asteapta la o scadere economica anuala de 8,5%, varianta mai optimista decat cea inaintata de analisti.
Adevarul afirma ca statistica va raporta in septembrie evolutia detaliata a economiei din primul semestru, acum a anuntat doar evolutia procentuala, din care reiese o scadere cu 7,6% a PIB. Insa din raportarile recente se intrevad deja evolutiile principalelor sectoare, cum ar fi industria, constructiile, serviciile, comertul exterior, salariile.
"Nu ma consider inventator, dar cred in idee. Iar cu putin sprijin, se putea si mai mult", spune franc Ladislau Doboli, care a pus bazele propriei afaceri pornind de la inventia lui. Mai exact, o tehnologie prin care reuseste obtinerea unui material folosit pentru constructia de mobilier prin reciclarea cartoanelor, a hartiilor, a frunzelor. "Din aceste materiale rezulta o pasta care inlocuieste lemnul. Se inlocuieste masa lemnoasa din produsul finit cu peste 25%. E un procent important", sustine Doboli.
Vazand ca nu se inghesuie nimeni sa-i cumpere ideea, Doboli a decis sa-si continue proiectul pe cont propriu. "Fara o investitie serioasa, ideea putea muri. Am vazut ca, desi era foarte buna, ecourile nu se faceau auzite." Dupa ce si-a deschis atelierul, caci firma i se pare prea pretentios spus, inventatorul a angajat sapte muncitori si a inceput sa fabrice produse de mic mobilier si apoi corpuri de iluminat. Omul se mandreste ca putea asigura salarii de 250-300 de dolari la nivelul anului 2004, angajatii erau multumiti, iar el castiga "frumusel". In acea perioada, produsele sale erau vandute si la targuri si conferinte si erau atractia principala a strainilor. Chiar si in zilele noastre, hoteluri din Neptun si Olimp au mobilier si veioze produse de atelierul lui.
Astazi, inventatorul se arata dispus la orice negociere. Ar vrea sa vanda ideea in strainatate, sau sa-si gaseasca un partener pentru afacere. La nivelul la care a investit el, profitul obtinut ii asigura un trai decent; Doboli crede ca o investitie de un milion de euro ar fi insa baza unei afaceri realmente prospere. Prospere si pentru ca materia prima este inepuizabila: cartoane, hartii si frunze aruncate or sa existe mereu. "Ce produce Romania cel mai mult? Gunoi! Gropile de gunoi sunt pentru mine o sursa de profit." Infim – asa descrie Radu Marin, presedintele Congresului National al Cercetatorilor si Inventatorilor, numarul inventiilor cumparate si aplicate in Romania. Mai mult, aplicarea celor mai multe a fost intrerupta inainte ca ele sa isi dovedeasca eficienta.
"Patronii vor sa se imbogateasca peste noapte si cat mai usor, iar o inventie are nevoie de efort si rabdare pana sa isi dovedeasca eficienta", considera Marin. Ca sa vina in sprijinul inventatorilor romani, CNCI, care functioneaza ca o asociatie privata, organizeaza actiuni de promovare, cele mai importante fiind saloanele de inventii. La nivelul institutiilor guvernamentale functioneaza insa Autoritatea Nationala pentru Cercetare Stiintifica, cu finantare de la bugetul de stat, care organizeaza anual competitii nationale de proiecte de cercetare stiintifica si inventii. "Solutia pentru acesti inventatori este sa castige concursuri pe proiecte sau sa faca microproductie. Ori si una, si alta. A treia solutie ar fi una radicala si fireasca: sa reuseasca sa faca transfer tehnologic pe baza inventiilor catre diverse intreprinderi particulare", sustine Marin. "Din acest punct de vedere, saracia generalizata, dezindustrializarea tarii si lipsa de interes a patronilor fata de progresul tehnic sunt motivele pentru care inventiile sunt total inghetate", sustine el. Pana acum a invatat asta chiar pe pielea lui. Cea mai noua inventie a sa este o instalatie care permite obtinerea unui hidrogen de inalta puritate, folosind doar apa de la robinet.
Romania’s economy is functional and on the rise; next year we will start spending the money from the EU, especially for infrastructure investments, so that we will not have to deal with the depreciation of the economic growth. It is not us saying it now, President Basescu did it last autumn. It was October 21, a little while after the speculations on the forex market that had caused the RON to depreciate suddenly and one month before the parliamentary elections. Coincidentally, on the same day, Premier Tariceanu stated that Romania would post a 4 to 6% economic growth in 2009.
Back then, as well as now, the way businesspeople and authorities treat the economic information, the events happening before their eyes – in the US, in Europe and here at home, is the first step in the battle against the crisis. Those who look for the information and take advantage of it always stand to gain; those who ignore it either cannot shield themselves from the crisis, or (in the case of the government) only manage to prolong the dangerous illusion that the crisis will eventually pass on its own – unless it has already done so.
”Honestly, I didn’t imagine the situation in America would have such powerful effects in Europe, too, and especially in Romania,” admits Florentin Banu, the man who developed the Joe wafers brand and the Artima supermarkets. ”As proof that I did not anticipate it, I am now reeling from the heavy blow in terms of not only my real estate investments, but also of the plastic business.” Banu controls Banuconstruct, which develops apartment blocks in Timisoara and the plastic and mould factory Interpart Production.
”Unfortunately for me, I did not anticipate the crisis. When trouble started on the American real estate market I thought there might be repercussions on the Romanian real estate market, too, but nothing more,” Cosmin Alexandru, founder of branding consultancy Brandivia and cofounder of Erudio, in his turn admits.
Another man who paid attention to the real estate market was Marius Stancescu, chairman of business services firm Riff Holding, to whom, however, the obvious price bubble fuelled by the boom of cheap loans reminded of the Japanese crisis in the eighties, so that he started to ”stubbornly” look for information on similar situations in other parts of the world – South America, South-East Asia, where the overheating of the economies in the nineties caused the well-known crises of the time. ”I found lots of similar events to what was happening in the US and obviously to what was going to happen on the old continent,” he says, confessing he had tried to warn as may Romanian entrepreneurs as he could about what was going to happen, but to no avail, precisely because things looked so good in our country, that the possibility of a crisis seemed out of the question.
Among those who anticipated the crisis would be imported in Romania, as well, was Marius Sfintescu, manager of private equity fund 3TS Capital. ”I anticipated we would see the expansion of the US crisis to the entire world, including Romania. I used the specialised media as a source of information.” Which is why Sfintescu was one of the few business people who agreed to answer BUSINESS Magazin’s question about what his opinion on the policy of the foreign governments in dealing with the crisis; whether he felt that the relaxation of the monetary policy was too slow in Germany or France, considering the deflationary climate and whether it was important from now on for the developed states to concern themselves with the reduction of the monetary mass in good time in order to avoid a stagflation friendly environment in 2011.
TRADUCERE DE LOREDANA FRATILA-CRISTESCU SI DANIELA STOICAN
The first signs of capitalism greet you right at the old gate of the former factory on 7, Iuliu Maniu Boulevard. On one side, tens of posters hastily thrown together and randomly stuck on the walls announcing the existence of all sorts of firms, from apparel to electronics shops, laundries, fitness studios, print shops and more. On the other, a new building, still under construction, sticks out like a sore thumb among the old buildings on the premises. A large billboard next to it advertises that this is where a new shop of one of the few clothing makers still operating in APACA, the biggest and best-known ready to wear factory in the communist years, will be built.
Since 1992, the year APACA was privatised, all the production facilities have been sold one by one and turned into different businesses. The ten ready to wear factories on the site were therefore much easier to divide among the hundreds of new shareholders, the former employees of APACA. The MEBO-type privatisation was the start of a real entrepreneurial aptitude test for the new shareholders. Until privatisation, the orders came from the state and were forwarded to divisions, but since 1992 each new owner has been on his own. It was very difficult because few of the APACA employees had had any contact with the foreign customers of the factory before, because neither the money nor the negotiations would reach the production facility.
That was also the case of Alexandru Ciucu Sr., who at the time took over section 5 that he was running, which made men’s clothes. The business was built together with his son, Alexandru Ciucu Jr. “At first we only worked under contract – exclusively to order, with materials supplied by customers, for Hugo Boss, Stefanel, Steilmann, YSL, H&M, but in time our friends started to ask for a suit and this is how we realised the potential of the domestic market,” Ciucu Jr, recalls.
Over time, other businesses came to the site, which had no connection to the APACA of yore. The site does not have a manager, however, so that there is no clear record of the companies operating on the nine hectares, and those who are curious to know have only posters, direction arrows and less often company logos to guide them to discover them: TipArt Vision print shop, Tara Fashion, Nordic Gym and so on.
Normally, the real estate market became interested, but APACA is hard to get. Real estate market specialists say the situation of the former apparel complex is quite complicated and attempts to gain exclusive rights to APACA have failed.
Niciunul din cei patru ministri din sectorul economic invitati de Ziarul Financiar nu a raspuns solicitarii de a participa la conferinta "Cum sa relansam economia", unde au fost discutate ieri masuri de relansare propuse de mediul privat.
In locul lor au venit secretari de stat sau n-a venit nimeni. Mesajul perceput de mediul de business a fost clar: am scapat fraiele economiei, descurcati-va singuri! Gheorghe Pogea, ministrul finantelor, Adriean Videanu, ministrul economiei, Radu Berceanu, ministrul transporturilor si Vasile Blaga, ministrul locuintelor, au refuzat intalnirea cu peste 100 de oameni de business, lideri in domeniile lor de activitate.
Cititi mai multe pe www.zf.ro
At 3 p.m. last Friday, two press releases announced the sale by Dinu Patriciu of the last 25 percent in Rompetrol. Over the following few hours, nobody would comment on the sale. Everyone was waiting for somebody else to start talking ”on the record” about one of the most eagerly awaited deals in Romania. All with whom BUSINESS Magazin tried to talk on Friday evening brought up a few common points: how much Dinu Patriciu sold for is not that important, how he did it is.
The deal was announced by two press releases: one sent by KazMunaiGaz, whereby chairman Kayrgeldy Kabyldin said the acquisition of the last stake of Rompetrol was in line with KMGís strategy to develop abroad, and the second release came from Dinu Patriciu, who said he had decided to exercise his right to sell to KMG the remaining 25 percent stake in Rompetrol Group. That the two parties did not send a joint release says one important thing about the relationship between the Kazakhs and Dinu Patriciu. ”I believe Dinu Patriciu has never had a very good relationship with those to whom he sold the business, but I think that by selling Rompetrol, he made two masterful moves in this time of crisis,” said one of the businessmen in the petroleum world interviewed by BUSINESS Magazin.
The price at which the sale was done is an interesting topic, too. According to sources on the market, last weekís sale was tightly connected to the sale in August 2007, when Dinu Patriciu and Phil Stephenson sold 75 percent in Rompetrol to the Kazakhs at KazMunaiGAz for 1.6 billion dollars, with the company thus valued at 2.2 billion dollars. Patriciu is the winner of the crisis twice, because with the deal sealed two years ago he checked, as he sold, before the crisis, a company whose rating has significantly gone down in the meantime. He now checkmated: he sold at a time when the crisis is in full swing and also escaped the deadline of the debts (which is June 2010). According to sources on the market, the contract initially signed by Patriciu included a mention that the sale of the 25 percent was to be done at a price at least equal to the company estimate in 2007. If we take that estimate into account, Patriciu collected approximately 533 million euros for the 25 percent. Even though he sold, Patriciu is still involved in the court case of Petromidia privatisation.
Traducere de Loredana Fratila-Cristescu si Daniela Stoican
The idea came during a friendly chat with the marketing manager of the Dinamo club, Mircea Copaci. The Dinamo official wanted the football team to have a uniform image, consistent with the demands of the big international clubs. The first order for such clothing came from Dinamo Sports Club in 2006 (around the same time Bigotti had a similar contract signed with rival football team Steaua). ”The first official appearance of the team wearing the shirts we created was at a game with England, with Everton, and Dinamo then won 5 to 1,” the Dinasty representative recalls.
Custom-made collections for company employees are a business with good prospects in fashion retail, which can bring money, but entails significantly lower costs than classic retail. However, this niche is as yet little explored in Romania – those who have tried this business model can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There has been demand for such clothing from companies in Romania for many years, but they had to resort to classic retail stores, in the absence of firms specialised in corporate clothing. ”A company’s image means much more than letterheads and business cards,” says Gabriel Muraru, who decided to launch a new division within the company he controls, dedicated exclusively to business wear for corporate employees (from suits to shoes and to cufflinks). Last year, before a clear strategy had been devised for this segment, orders for corporate clothing accounted for 5% of the company’s 6 million-euro turnover.
The amount was, however, enough to persuade Muraru that this project would work. The specialised division should, of course, have contributed much more to the 2009 turnover, and Dinasty representatives admit that the timing for launching the division onto the market was not the best. Gabriel Muraru is aware that providing clothing for employees is not a priority in companies’ spending budget at this time. However, ”image counts in a time of crisis, as well,” says the Dinasty shareholder, who has started the new business with tens of signed contracts. Its clients include Coca- Cola, European Drinks, Ursus, Perroni, Banca Transilvania, Automoldova, Mobexpert, Iptana, Transgaz, Terapia Cluj, Antibiotice Iasi, Neocity, Rifil and Baumit.
Traducere de Loredana Fratila-Cristescu si Daniela Stoican
A little after lunch, all is quiet on Radu Beller. The businesspeople that had a cup of coffee in the morning or had lunch are already back at the office. Waiters are getting ready for the second wave of customers for the day: the afternoon bunch, who gave a relatively deprecatory meaning to the ”go out for a cup of coffee in Dorobanti” phrase. More concerned about showing off than about business or about the simple pleasure of sitting in an outdoor restaurant, this type of customer, as well as the overall increase in revenues over the last few years have been the most important causes for the development of coffee shop poles in Bucharest.
Radu Beller was the first such pole because it is precisely on this street in the Dorobanti quarter that the after-1990 history of coffee shops and restaurants in Bucharest began – once the Deutschland confectionery shop and the White Horse restaurant opened some time around 1997. ”I bought this house in 1995, when I came back from a trip to London and decided to get my own pub,” recalls Cristian Paun, the owner of White Horse and La Belle Époque restaurants, about the house in Dorobanti where he opened the first pub-restaurant in the capital. Coffee shops and restaurants started to develop on Dorobanti and Radu Beller since 1999, with the opening of Nova Brasilia and, some time later, of the High Heels or The Belle Époque.
In June 2009, ten years from the start of the development of the area, more than ten restaurants and coffee shops are lining the street. Quite a crowded street section, which however, attracts more than one million customers a year, who drink more than two million cups of coffee and generate more than ten million euros. It is very important that anyone opening a coffee shop and wanting to have it blend in with the area, should place it right there, in those several tens of metres. Around 2006, the area that had started to develop as a business meeting place began turning into a fashionable location.
”2006 was the year when a sort of small bourgeoisie started to develop in Romania, people who had made money from real estate speculations, from selling some property given back to them by the state, from various other small businesses, who immediately saw Dorobanti as an area that had shut them out until then, which they suddenly could afford. This is how they started to come,” says Cristian Paun explaining how the customers of the area changed. To real estate agents specialising in that location, the flood of customers was a significant leap of the market. Alexandru Preda, retail broker of Colliers, says that spaces in Radu Beller are rented as soon as they are put on the market. Too bad there are not too many of them: most of the existing spaces have been occupied by the same coffee shops for years. ”Almost no one has closed up shop on Dorobanti until now,” says Preda, who is carefully watching the area and says he has customers for each space that comes up.
Radu Beller, however, has become too small a place for all the people in Bucharest who wanted to go out for a cup of coffee. Especially since as soon as a street is known as a business pole, it starts to become fashionable, and the business pole tends to move, though somewhere close by. Which is why in 2003-2004, when Dorobanti became a crowded street, other areas started to develop. One by one, Dorobanti (from Piata Lahovari towards Perla), Episcopiei and Dinicu Golescu streets, the University area and then Decebal developed. All these streets together with Radu Beller generated almost 100 million euros in business in 2008, as calculated by BUSINESS Magazin.
